The instructions by the Governor were simple

Li Shimin remembers a particularly harsh winter 1986. Just graduated from its school of engineering, he comes to integrate the small centre of research on solar energy in Lanzhou, Gansu, and already he must leave for Ali, a village under construction at the frontiers of Tibet. "It took us more than 10 days of travel by train, truck and 44 to move mountains to arrive on-site", says the researcher became the Vice-Director of the Gansu Natural Energy Research Institute (Gneri). He discovered an embryo of city in a lunar setting vivotant without electricity. "The instructions by the Governor were simple." It was less 20 degrees in the homes of the farmers who came to settle on the spot. We back these temperatures to 0 degree. "Far from the power grid and any coal mine which could permit the construction of a small thermal power, his team has installed solar panels on the roofs and the casing of breakdown recovery of heat on the walls of the barracks. "The temperature indoors has finally reached 16 degrees", point Li Shimin, who had since cross missions in China to promote solar energy.

If it is long stationed in the installation of passive houses, to the development of solar water heaters - one in ten households in equipped in the country - in the production of small ovens solar, sold 15 euros to the families accustomed to cooking on BBQ briquettes of coal-powered, it now works on the most ambitious plan for the promotion of renewable energyrecently designed by Beijing.

More renewable energy

Belatedly realized for the heavy environmental and impact human dependence on coal - is originally of nearly 80 of the electricity produced in the country-, China ruled in 2006 that the renewable energy (excluding hydropower), which generated while 7.9 of the electricity in the country, should see their share leap to 15 in the energy mix in the horizon of 2020, domestic. "It is a challenge but are crucial solutions to improve the lives of the people," agreed Li Shimin, pointing finger fat haze surrounding the city of Lanzhou. Hosted in the hills of sand, Lanzhou, appearing regularly at the top of the most polluted cities in the world, stifle, as many other parts of the country, releases of huge industrial complexes and thermal power plants which were of global CO2 transmitter the largest China.

The Windows of the aircraft flying over vast desert plains Mongolia-inner and Gansu, North of the country, can be seen the first fields of wind turbines recently planted with public funding. On the whole of the territory, 6 giant wind projects, which should, each, reach the capacity of 16 large coal-fired plants, are currently under construction, in the margin 200 small centers of production mounted by electricians in the country. By 2020, the country could display a production of more than 100 gigawatt capacity, against 1.2 in 2005. "In terms of magnitude and rhythm, the development of wind power in China is absolutely without equal in the world," summarizes Steve Sawyer, Secretary General of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). "At the current rate, they will be within two years the first in the world in terms of installed capacity."

Deep in the desert of Gansu, on the former route of the Silk Road, China tests also, in the dunes, the efficiency of large solar power plants. Hoping to reach an installed capacity of 20 GW by 2020, the authorities come to give the green light to a 10 megawatt project, which is associated with the Belgian Enfinity near the town of Dunhuang. The Government is also preparing to unveil a national redemption price of electricity photovoltaic, likely to encourage local electricians still frightened by the cost of kWh solar to invest in power plants or to connect the facilities to the national grid - a lot of "farms" solar or wind turbines of the country have not yet been connected and produce in vain. A rash of new profitable projects, calculates Beijing, would absorb a part of the production of Chinese groups, which currently provide 30 of world production of solar panels but continue to export 95 of their goods abroad.

Green champions

If must green energy development to allow the country to reduce its CO2 emissions, it must, indeed, also encourage the emergence of industrial champions able to impose international. "China has a strategic vision of the role that they can take in a low carbon world," point in their last report, the Climate Group experts before pointed out that the global economic crisis and the sharp fall in Chinese exports have bolstered the beliefs of Beijing. "All these new energies are the roots of future growth for our economy." "They will allow us to create new jobs," insisted a few days ago Wan Gang, the Minister of science and technology, which has multiplied since last year public aid policies to consolidate the Chinese green industry.

A portion of the funds already came to Lanzhou. Early next year, Li Shimin will move into the new centre of research of the Gneri, installed in downtown. He will leave the site of Yuzhong, based 50 miles in the campaign, and will transfer its latest research. He worked in the modernization of rotating solar panels able to follow the path of the Sun. In the Court, he dissected a model of its imported from the US group, powered freon. "Too polluting for us", smiles.